SHS math students can count on online 're-do'

SANDPOINT - In colleges and universities across the U.S., it's common practice for class presentations to be recorded by various means and be available immediately for review on a professor's Web site.

That way, students who miss class don't miss the material, and those who want to see or hear a lecture or lesson again before an exam can do so.

Thanks to a $5,000 grant from the Panhandle Alliance for Education, the Sandpoint High School Math Department has purchased two specialized computer systems that will eventually allow SHS students similar access to many of the department's lessons. Teacher Nachele Search is piloting the project this year with her pre-calculus, calculus, and algebra II classes, in which 99 students are enrolled.

“At first I was hesitant to take this on because I didn't know how to work the computer equipment, but now I'm totally sold.” Search said. “The tablet PC is like an Etch-a-Sketch, so it's fun and the kids think it's cool, and it's such a time-saver.”

With the use of the PC tablet and voice recorder, Search's examples and notes are saved in a video file along with her comments, then loaded onto her SHS Web site. Students who are absent due to illness, school activities or family commitments, or who need to be refreshed on the material before they can finish homework or prepare for a quiz, can view and hear the whole lesson on a school computer or from home if they have Internet access.

Because teachers have some one-and-a-half-hour classes, they often cover one-and-a-half topics per day, Search says. So a student who misses a class can suffer a large gap in the continuum: Not only have they missed the past class, they probably need the missed material to understand the present day's class.

“To have lessons available online lets these students keep up rather than fall behind,” Search said.

Former SHS math teacher Jayne Davis applied last year for the PAFE grant, then transferred to Sandpoint Middle School. Davis approached Search to take over the project, ensuring help from Davis's husband, Dave Mann, and her son, Eric Mann, a SHS senior.

As promised, when PAFE awarded the grant, father and son ordered and set up the computer equipment, and Eric was Search's teaching assistant for two periods a day during the first semester. In addition to initializing the computer for class, Eric downloaded each day's lessons onto Search's Web site, and he found and loaded free tools onto Search's tablet PC, such as a graph-paper screen and a graphing calculator that students can download onto their own PCs.

“Jayne had the vision,” Search said, “and once the PAFE grant was awarded, Dave and Eric helped execute the vision, and Eric made it work.”

A surprise benefit for Search came when she herself had to miss a teaching day.

“It's hard to find substitutes who can teach math classes, so when I've known I must be gone, I used to have my sub fill in with review exercises,” Search said. “But in this case, I had taped a lesson of new material, and I directed the substitute to show my video, so the student got the visual notes and my recorded comments on a current lesson.”

Since she's taping all her lessons this year, when she needs to be gone in the future, she can go into the archives and run the previous year's video of any particular lesson. The lessons change from year to year, Search said, and students ask different questions that she addresses verbally and in notes on the tablet PC, but the notes from any given year could still be beneficial for students to see.

Search is enthusiastic about training another SHS math teacher on the PC tablet for next fall because in some ways, the new system has revolutionized teaching for her, she said.

“I don't know if I can estimate the hours this system saves me, but it's huge,” she said. “I always encourage my students to come to me for one-on-one help, but if they can review the material before they come to me, they tend to understand things more quickly and more thoroughly. And that makes a huge difference, for them and for me.”

The Panhandle Alliance for Education is a nonprofit organization comprised of local citizens, businesses, and educators. Its mission is to promote excellence in education and broad-based community support for the Lake Pend Oreille School District. Donations are distributed as a combination of permanent endowment which is managed by the Idaho Community Foundation, and as a working pool of money used to create local teacher grants, fund a district wide accelerated reading program, and initiate a career guidance program. Local citizens are encouraged to join by making tax deductible donations.

Information: www.panhandlealliance.com or (208) 610-3236